I'm On My Fifth Xbox 360

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Yes. Bioshock is amazing. You know this already.

There are times when I'd just sit in the corner of a room next to a record player spinning some crackly Billie Holiday, soak in the leaky under-scenery, and listen to the amazing radio messages as they unravel an series of stories with genuine characters in the most old-fashioned and new-fashioned of ways simultaneously. Then I'd move about three steps per hour to the next room, eating every candy bar in sight and hacking every camera I could find, self-terrifyingly stalling to avoid what's undoubtedly to come. Talk about the the perfect antidote to my long-standing complaint about the infinite Brown Devil Gun Zombie Space Linebacker Shooters we usually get — please, give us more of this. More points of view. More ideas.

Xbox #1 — I won this Xbox 360 in the Mountain Dew contest after learning about a quickly-closed loophole in the rules that allowed anyone on Earth to generate lots of free contest entries without having to buy soda and stack the contest odds in their favor. It eventually broke. I suspect the loophole, and easy win, ruined my karma forever.

Xbox #2 — This one lasted a little while longer, but eventually games started to completely lock up forcing a hard reboot. On the plus side, the freezing almost felt like a new, extra-challenging minigame built into all games — while playing The Darkness, it might have been harder trying to pre-empt and avoid inevitable freezes than it was to finish the game itself. I very eagerly shipped off this box, hoping to get it back before Bioshock.

Xbox #3 — Freshly repaired and just in time, with the brand new heat sink fix for the GPU, I had high hopes for this little guy. But a few weeks into Bioshock madness — terrible news. I turned on the game, and the title screen was filled with gallons of oscillating blue lines, all over the place. Back to the Dashboard, bright colors turned into somber, gray ones. I quickly turned the machine off, took a few deep breaths, turned it on and... nothing. No video output. Sound? Fine. Video? Ridiculous! I can't stress this enough: this machine was manufactured in early August, had the brand new heat-sink "fix", and still died two weeks later. This is bad! (Worst still, it wasn't technically a "red ring" problem, so it wouldn't have been covered with the newly-extended warranty.)

Xbox #4 — Hoping to start anew, and not wanting to lose any more precious Bioshock-time, I bought a brand new Xbox 360 at Target, a premium with HDMI output. Almost immediately, Bioshock started pausing for extended periods of time in the middle of heated action. Better still, most textures were taking an incredibly long time to load — I'd enter a room, run up to an object, and it would be an unexciting gray blob of polygons. Five seconds later, BLAM! A texture map! Hey, it's a slot machine! Ten seconds later, BLAM! Hooray, a shadow! Thirty seconds later, BLAM! An additional level of detail! While it was honestly a pretty cool effect, I suspected a bum DVD drive, saw a bleak future, and took it back for a quick in-store exchange.

Xbox #5 — Currently working, and keeping the games flowing while Xbox #3 heads back to the repair depot today. Wish Xbox #5 luck, people!

In all honesty, does anyone know how it got this bad? We talk in the office about how an Xbox 360 is like three G5's shrunk down into a small, poorly-ventilated plastic case — surely, using Mac G5's as a reference point, they could have easily predicted thermal issues would be pretty serious? How did this manage to go on for so long? And jokingly-most-importantly, somebody got fired for this, right? I mean, there's a dude, or team of dudes, at Microsoft, who at the very least cost the company one billion dollars in extended warranty repairs. One billion dollars! I don't know much about the corporate culture at Microsoft, but that's got to be worth a pink slip or two, right?

I'd love to hear your Xbox 360 repair stories. And I have one request, Microsoft, if you're listening:

Would you kindly fix your console?

posted at 12:20 AM

62 Comments:

Only your fifth? You're lucky, my friend is on his 10th or so. I've only got my Wii and DS so I'm not one who's experienced the RROD, etc problems with the XBox 360, however I'm always reading about them.

Madness! I've been on my first Xbox for well over a year now, and still going strong. Guess I'm just lucky. I did get the texture pop-up occasionally in BioShock, but nowhere near as bad as you describe. That's a UE prob anyway, not the box for once (it happened in Gears as well if I'm not mistaken).

Don't worry too much about textures popping -it is a feature of the Unreal3 engine. Although it should enable you to seamlessly travel through the world without loading and should not happen too often. And certainly not make you wait for textures 10 seconds :).

Anonymous9/12/2007 4:00 AM

Erm, the slow texture loading thing is a cache thing - if you hold down left bumper + right bumper while the game loads, it should clear it out. If that doesn't work, you might have to do the whole special clear cache/downloaded updates key combo, but I don't think that 360's DVD drive was in question. Even happened on mine.

My Xbox, by the way, I picked up on 9AM launch morning after waiting 12 hours in the cold, and is still in perfect working condition. I'm rather dissapointed, actually - I think I lost my chance to win the lottery...

My first Xbox died last month after a year of faithful service. The video went out one night and that was all she wrote. Unfortunately, that particular hardware failure (I'm assuming the video card's face melted inside its plastic oven prison) isn't covered by the new extended warranty because there is no "Red Ring of Death" when you turn the console on.

I also have had to replace my Xbox 360, before the extended warranty thing. I actually got it at Best Buy and have a replacement plan, so I just brought it in, swapped the HDs with the new one and walked out with a new system, so far it's worked fine, including Bioshock play by my roomie and constant abuse of Saints Row, Halo 2 and more from me.

Ummm... 5 xboxes? Like the first three dying wasn't bad enough? And then you went and bought another?

Seriously?

Anonymous9/12/2007 7:26 AM

I feel your pain. I'm on my third -- a brand new, non-elite HDMI-enabled one. I can't stress how terrible XBOX support has been throughout this process. Why do I keep buying? Because the system and its games are above and beyond anything PS3 has on the horizon. And the Wii is cute but not a serious gaming machine (yes, I am well aware that Nintendo is not trying to compete in that market). I wish you luck (and I hope I have some too). Halo 3 is imminent and I cannot deal with freezing anymore!

Anonymous9/12/2007 7:44 AM

I'm on my third 360 right now after disc read errors on the first and the RROD on the second. Now I'm just waiting for my third one to die....because it will. I honestly wouldn't care if they redesigned the thing and it was a lot bigger (because of more internal cooling), as long as it would function properly.

I worked on the Xbox 360 launch team (no longer at Microsoft though). I'm on my second Xbox 360 -- the special one I got as a launch gift died 13 months later and had to be replaced.

It's clear that the Xbox 360 has major quality problems (especially the first 1 or 2 million consoles made in 2005), hence Microsoft's $1B charge. Peter Moore use to say a "normal" failure rate would be 3-5%, so the rate Microsoft's seeing must be much higher. 10%? 15%?

Which is still small enough that most consoles will be fine, most consumers will have a fine experience, but wow - holy economies of scale. If the airport lost only 0.1% of all luggage, multiplied by the billions of luggage pieces that travel each year that would be a huge problem -- we'd have riots. Microsoft's sold over 10 million consoles, so a failure rate of 10% implies over 100 people have had at least 5 consoles go belly up. If the rate is 15%, more than 750 consumers have had 5 consoles fail.

I will say this: it's a complex machine, and not everything that goes wrong is Microsoft's fault. (In fact, even when the console is to blame, it's usually a third-party -- a component vendor or the factory assembly line -- that's the root cause.) As other commenters have pointed out, games are buggy. Or sometimes the operating environment has poor air circulation (for the console or the power brick) and that can cause overheating outside the norm. Did you exchange the power brick too, or only the console?

By the way, it's not a single "Red Ring of Death" error. The three red LEDs signify many different possible failures (hardware, firmware, and software). If you hold down the binding button on the console and press the eject button four times, you can read out a more specific (undocumented) diagnostic error code.

Anonymous9/12/2007 9:14 AM

I'm waiting for my second to come back repaired, which I guess means my third. Sucks.

I had similar issues to #4 but I found cleaning the HD Cache out using the method detailed here took care of it. So far I have had good luck with my 360. I got it in January and haven't had any trouble with it.

I've only had the one repair, though that took emailing a Microsoft executive because despite amassing 7 reference numbers calling a huge amount of times, they seemed unable to actually send me a shipping label. They also seem to have broken the sensor in the 360 that allows it to figure out which way up it is and to orient the ring of light correctly, which is kinda annoying.

Julian9/12/2007 4:25 PM

I must be one of the lucky ones. I have one xbox360 I purchased in Jan 2006 in my living room and one I purchased in May 2006 in my bedroom. The only problem I have ever had is the disc drawer on the first one gets stuck sometimes and I have to press on it to get it to open.

Anonymous: "Peter Moore use to say a "normal" failure rate would be 3-5%, so the rate Microsoft's seeing must be much higher. 10%? 15%?"

I'm afraid it's probably even higher. Remember, the failures aren't instantaneous, they are spread out over time. Your system might last five minutes (like Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku) or it might last six to twelve months. But it seems like a LOT of people are getting failures eventually.

With a 10% failure rate, how unlucky would Cabel have to be to have four failures? He'd be one in 10,000.

Honestly, my brutally honest engineering assessment is that it sounds as if the failure rate is closer to 50%. Then he'd only need to be one in 16. And yet I can't even fathom that number. It's damn near unprecedented.

What do you expect, it's microsoft. Microsoft has never done anything even 90% correct in their entire history. They always just get there and then screw up. The Xbox 360 is a great console, but it has soo many issues. It will never be perfect.

Ever considered not paying ridiculous amounts of money for a broken product?

Games like Bioshock are on XBox because people like you buy XBoxes. Stop buying them, and perhaps we'd see them on a more sensible platform.

N.B. The only allegiance I pledge is to which ever console isn't overpriced and broken. I don't really care who's making it. So by "more sensible", I merely mean that, more sensible.

Anonymous9/14/2007 12:40 PM

I was just thinking of picking a 360 up for the holidays, now not so much. Yuck with failure rate. Maybe this is a sign for me to skip this generation.

Gil9/14/2007 11:10 PM

Well, Box #2 and #4 didn't have a hardware problem at that point I guess.. Believe it or not: Microsoft isn't responsible for everything going wrong with their console: "The Darkness" is known for Freezes (I had them too while playing through single player), it's a software problem (as some other games had, too). Box #4 was also not responsible for your problem: After installing the new Bioshock update you just have to clear the cache by holding LT + RT during startup of the game until you see the 2k-logo...

trav: Actually, with Xbox #2, the freezes happened with all games, at all times. Basically, I couldn't play any game without it locking up after 5 or 10 minutes. "The Darkness" just happened to be the last game I tried to finish before losing my patience and sending the Xbox in for repair. :) (It does sound like the Bioshock thing could have been avoided, but I wasn't going to take any chances in my 90 day return policy. ;))

I think you should take the innards of your next 360 and stuff it in a G5 case. IT NEEDS TO BREATHE. Wasn't the initial developer rigs for the 360 Mac G5s?

marko9/16/2007 10:37 PM

Hi,I'm from Spain and I've got my 360 for a year and now it's giving me some strange problems.

What is worst than having 3 red lights? Maybe the fact of not being sure if your xbox is damaged or not. That's mostly like being crazy (couse it works but when you are trying to show the problem at someone suddenly the machine starts working).

My 360 stucks sometimes and some others it doesn't. I played this morning Crackdown and now I tried Splinter Cell:Pandora Tomorrow ( shit, the 3 lights apeared !!! ), but is strange couse it usually stucks but It doesn't show the lights (i've seen them only once).Fuck, it looks like I'm one of the chosen ones.

I hope it's finally broken, just imagine calling the dial number, they ask you to turn on your xbox, yea? imagine how frustrating it has to be watch that it's suddenly working.

Here in Europe they repair them in Germany, I hope they'll fix it.

RayX9/17/2007 6:30 AM

"a failure rate of 10% implies over 100 people have had at least 5 consoles go belly up"

Based on all I've seen on message boards online, I'm betting it's much, much, much higher than 10%. I've easily seen 100 posts from people who have had 5 or more - just myself.

Think about it: a 1 billion dollar hit - and there are 10 million consoles out there. Say a repair costs $100. Do the math.

I have no interest in buying a product like that, even with the 3-year warranty. My concept of console gaming is "no hassles". Hassles are what PC gaming is for. My first next-gen foray after the Wii will be a PS3, and then, perhaps, the second-gen 360.

Anonymous9/27/2007 7:18 AM

Aww, i've heard that the old 360's was really bad and died after a while... I got a new fixed one not so long ago, hope yours is all fine now

Anonymous10/02/2007 10:00 AM

I'm on my third 360.The first one (bought at UK launch) had the checkerboard gfx problem after less than 11 months and was replaced. The 'new' one they replaced it with failed to work at all from day one, so that one was also replaced. The current one is still working. I have a full Live Friends list and nearly all of them have had multiple failures. Only a few (less than 10) have had no failure at all.

Anonymous10/17/2007 3:24 PM

My guess on the failure rate is 30-40%. It's certainly higher than 5% or 10%, I'm on my 2nd (1st lasted 11 mos before RROD, purchased late 2006) another friend of mine is on their 3rd and over half of my Xbox Live buddies have returned at least one Xbox360 either via Microsoft repair/exchange or the store's return policy.

Silver lining: they lose money on the hardware right? So this has really got to be sticking it to them... the $1B charge will be followed by others...

The situation with the 3 red lights of death is terrible. I'm on the same xbox, but it's broke twice, and all microsoft can give me is a months free trial for xbox live and I'm only on xbox live! I think you should do a song about this! ;)

I'm on my 3rd XBox 360 since I first purchased mine in December 2006. The first lasted about 8 months before developing RROD. The replacement lasted about 2 weeks before it started displaying random lines and graphic artifacts making gameplay impossible. Old #3 has survived a Halo 3 campaign without problems so far.

Never before have I had so many quality problems with a console. If it weren't for the decent game selection and Gamefly I would have abandoned the 360 already.

I bought my first XBOX 360 in nov. of 05 it broke in aug. ring of death, i sent it out and it took them 2 months to send me a "new" XBOX,i have no clue y it would take so long for them to send me a different XBOX.. I finally recieved it 2 weeks after the halo 3launch, it broke the other day after 1 week of having it.. So now i have to send this one back.. the ring of death is caused by a faulty mother board, which has to be replaced, the "new" one they sent to me didnt have it replaced so it happend to go bad after a week, the retards didnt think to replace it beacuse it was refurbished and it wasnt at the repair center for that problem so ive only played my xbox 1 week out of 3 months, I missed the halo 3 launch, now im gonna miss the call of duty 4 launch.. Thankx alot microsoft..

Anonymous10/28/2007 11:04 PM

Wow! Reading all of these comments, and others from various sites has me holding off on purchasing an Xbox 360. I would LOVE to dive into the games, but.... I'm not buying a game console that will spend more time away than in my hot hands. Get it together MS and then I'll buy.

Anonymous10/29/2007 5:25 PM

I bought my second xbox today,first one died Error 74 style.I am scared to start my new one.It doesn't have any warranty so i was wondering if i should open it up and put some thermal paste on GPU and CPU.

I'm on my third box, I haven't got it back yet. My friend is also on his third. I'm starting to think the 360 is a piece of shit!

Anonymous11/19/2007 6:48 AM

I'm still on my first, I got it right when the discounts happend, but i've only played Viva Piniata and Halo 3 (Ace Combat 6 soon) and no problems (it's a pro)

Anonymous11/19/2007 12:14 PM

The guy at game stop said he got an Elite (suposed to be RROD proof) and 3 days later it had the RROD! Microsoft . . . have you ever even used vista?

Anonymous11/19/2007 12:18 PM

We're on our 3rd piece of junk xbox 360 - #1 (red lights crash), 2nd made it 1/2 way through a single movie before the graphics card completely went out (started with colors bleeding). There's more then enough people here to start a class action lawsuit. If this 3rd replacement craps out, we're dropping the legal bomb so stay tuned.....

nothing would please me more than full reimbursement + tax + a little extra for the legal fees to slap Microsoft in the face (sorry MS - a free month of xbox live did not offset the inconvenience). Would at least give all of us experiencing these problems the CHOICE of buying a new xbox 360 or spending the money on another console that actually works.

Anonymous11/19/2007 3:38 PM

A significant number of heat issues are caused by the accumulation of dust in front of the CPU heat sink. The twin fans pull the air thru this heat sink, and the gathering dust forms almost a sweater-type fabric over time. It takes only a few months if you've got serious pet dander or dust problems. We've got two ionic deals, and our launch 360 v.1.0 had this sweater when I checked it a few months ago (you do the math on how many years??). Anyhow, without opening the case, I removed just the bottom plastic cover piece and with the aid of a flashlight, I could see the dust-sweater. By using a can of compressed air and carefully positioning the straw, I was able to remove the dust. Be careful not to lose the straw inside the xbox. Now, I can play mass effect and bioshock without the xbox locking up. And if I take the unit outside the tv-cabinet, where there is plenty of circulating air, the textures fill as fast as my son's elite.

Anonymous12/10/2007 2:18 PM

1st XBOX 360:- Got it in august 2006, worked fine for about a year and half, then out of nowhere, red ring of death issue. this was covered under new extended warranty and i was shipped a replacement.

2nd XBOX 360:- Console replacement was refurbished unit from 2006 (even though it was december 2007), and it vibrated to the point where it was rattling the glass on my tv stand, and it was louder than my game was, it also started scratching my discs

3rd XBOX 360:- there was something wrong with the video output on this one, as it would not display correct resolution on my HDTV, or on my DVD's, it kept showing me 480i letterbox instead of 1080i widescreen.

4th XBOX 360:- just got it in the mail like 1 hour ago, i pulled it out as soon as I got home from purolator, it was already room temperature, I plugged it in and i hear the startup sounds but nothing shows on my screen at all. I went to check the connection for video and BOOM two flashing red lights. now my xbox turns on, but sometimes it gets two flashing red lights, and there is no video displayed at ALL.

Called XBOX again and they said someone will be calling me back about this issue (a supervisor). To specially handle this issue for me, the thing that puzzles me is that its 2008, and I keep getting xbox's from mid 2006 which obviously have some sort of hardware problems because otherwise they wouldn't have made revisions to the newer xbox models now would they? Hey, they are the ones blowing money sending me xbox after xbox and frankly I dont care, let them. I havn't played xbox in over 4 months because as soon as I get the replacement it breaks right away, so hopefully this time i get a NEW one, but in the mean time, ill just go play my PS3.

Anonymous2/05/2008 9:01 PM

Im on my 8th XBox 360 good luck...

Anonymous2/16/2008 11:00 PM

i suggest buying a ps3 with its own blue ray drive...{high def.}

Anonymous2/16/2008 11:02 PM

'Tis why I waited, and got an Elite. I kept telling people, but NOBODY believed me, that the Core and Premium releases of the original Xbox 360 were just massive-scale prototype/beta machines. The Elite was given an HDMI (after Microsoft found out just exactly how much it would be worth it; i.e. if anyone would want HDMI if it weren't included already). The motherboard was reconfigured to allow for better airflow, as well as all components receiving various modifications to deal with the heat and perform perfect with no problems, should it continue to overheat. The north and south - bridge chips were given a strip of glue to hold down the chips to prevent problems from arising as result of warping; i.e. heating up while playing, then cooling down while not in use.

Oh, and not to mention the 120GB Hard Drive. I've got more on my Elite than my friend does on his Premium, and I've got 80+GB left.

Anonymous2/28/2008 2:59 AM

I NEED to play GTA IV, and it seems as though the game has effectively broken my xbox, late 2007 premium with a BenQ drive, it hasn't red ringed but it did start freezing up on my other two games, COD4 and AO2... they would go through their intros, let me move a few steps, freeze, unfreeze for less than a second, then lock up. At first, this happened with GTA but it started out okay after a hard reboot, then I could play progressively less and less before a freeze until it got to the point where the intro plays, then it locks up after a few steps as described above, or even right in the cinematic intro when I tried after clearing my hard drive. After clearing the hard drive, my other games would play but were glitchy with colored lines, albeit small, like little worms in the screen, is there a worm in GTA or something? Clearing the cache seemed to work once, then no, same thing with putting the resolution down to 480 from 1080, but I think it was just a progressive failure, I don't know, I keep on trying but it's lame testing for them when I bought the "special" edition, and I am really sick of sitting through the cel intro/song, like "maybe this time I'll get to drive around some before it freezes," only to drive to the gate, and the double freeze happens. I definitely thought the game is what caused this but then I go on the internet and see something like a third of xboxes having to go back, so I'm thinking about buying a ps3 just for this game I want to play it so badly, and it'll be like playing the lottery I guess because a lot of people are having the same problem with their playstation.

Anonymous5/11/2008 10:56 AM

lol i know EXACTLY how you feelim going on my 6th Xbox, and its unbelievable. I didnt do anything to these xbox's, they just have personal issues. 1st was extreme graphic malfunction during PGR3 and CoD2 2nd was RRoD after playing Chromhounds after screen truned green and red3rd was graphic malfunction then RRoD During Viva Pinata4th had no signs of RRoD after playing Halo 3, then I turned it on one day and it got it.5th is still in my living room with its disk tray not working properly. And it's "To play this disk, please insert into Xbox 360 Console" saying.And thats my story of my xbox's, ByeBye =]

Anonymous5/12/2008 7:29 PM

if i were all you i'd be mr. take the easy cheep way out and send it to microsoft enough times till it fixes and stop wrapping it in a dam towel! you send it in once and they'll do it for free after you pay for it one time. and whal ur waiten get a wii or somethin cuz there only 100 bucks, or you could be smart and just wait 4 the xbox! duuuuur :p

Anonymous5/27/2008 8:14 PM

haha your fifth one

well im on my 3rd..its pathetic isant it? How can Microsoft release such a shit console to the public.

I may as well work for f*cking Microsoft and answer the millions of phone calls from angry customers. Id just tell them to buy a PS3 or to save their cash for something which actually plays and doenst seem to have an endless list of problems like the 360 does.

Today I had the pleasure of experiencing a brand new problem with mine :D A brand new hard drive whirring noise everytime I switch on the console. How totally AWESOME is that..

I mean all I want to do is sit down and play a game..but apparently I can no longer do that anymore..

Fuck the XBOX..I'm sick and tired of it..It's a complete waste of cash whichever way you look at it. Its upto you if your willing to have it sent off to Microsoft and have it replaced on a weekly basis..But I'm not going to do that..

DONT BUY ONE!

Mark6/03/2008 11:02 AM

So mine just broke today while playing GTA 4 (at least i beat it) but im on NUMBER 8! I mean come on this is fucking crazy...isnt there some kinda lemon law against this kinda corporate bull shit? Well one plus guys if you bitch enough theyll send you free shit besides the 1 month xboxlive....so far ive recieved a wireless controller, Viva Pinata ( great game for a 26 m WTF!) Charging cord....and about a year worth of xbox live....ive only paid for one of these repairs and then was later sent a check to reenburse me for it........MICROSOFT IS A CORPORATE GIANT WHO DOESNT CARE THERE SELLING YOU GARBAGE.....I hate to say it but bu a PS3 I havent read any forums like this about SONY!

Anonymous6/12/2008 4:59 PM

"'Tis why I waited, and got an Elite. I kept telling people, but NOBODY believed me, that the Core and Premium releases of the original Xbox 360 were just massive-scale prototype/beta machines. The Elite was given an HDMI (after Microsoft found out just exactly how much it would be worth it; i.e. if anyone would want HDMI if it weren't included already). The motherboard was reconfigured to allow for better airflow, as well as all components receiving various modifications to deal with the heat and perform perfect with no problems, should it continue to overheat. The north and south - bridge chips were given a strip of glue to hold down the chips to prevent problems from arising as result of warping; i.e. heating up while playing, then cooling down while not in use.

Oh, and not to mention the 120GB Hard Drive. I've got more on my Elite than my friend does on his Premium, and I've got 80+GB left."

That's a good point. One of my friends has an Elite, and his xbox never died or had problems, and lucky me, I got my Xbox 360 Elite about 3 weeks ago, so I guess I'm fine, or I have a higher survival rate than other users. Am I right? :) Oh and I got extra memory... :PGood luck with your 5th Xbox, Cabel!-Anonymous

i'm on my 9th xbox360 and now i'm done i'm tired of going to best buy every single month now im going to buy a ps3 not waste my money on another fu**ing xbox i just want to smash it open and and shoot it the only reason i bought an xbox in the first place was because of halo but they say resistence is better than halo so fu** xbox it just fu**ing sucks di*k u xbox fans out there hope u learn ps3 is better 3 days after u own an xbox

Anonymous2/11/2009 4:24 AM

my 360 elite is burning my games every time i put the in there it puts a burn mark around the center and it tells me to eject the disk what am i supposed to do